This may be borderline off-topic, but I wanted to elaborate on the poster mention of stupid puns in the book.
What's up with that? Why do people not think these lame jokes make them look like morons? I was watching a car show yesterday, and they ended with a bit on exhaust systems: "If you haven't exhausted your possibilites yet, you can pick up the acme muffler - it's a gas." Except it went on longer and was stupider. There were at least two more stupid puns, including "exhaust" being used again. With half the time being an advertisement of select aftermarket parts and the other half devoted to making me groan, I learned what a supercharger was, how it differed from Nos, and that's about it. In half an hour.
Make jokes, that's fine. If you want to say "how can the iPod be so skinny, yet sound so fat?" that's great, I'll chuckle. But "Apple-ication?" Don't be a dumbass.
According to this, a computer draws less than half the power of a refrigerator.
I think their numbers are a little high, though. By their calculations, I should be paying $30/month just for the computer (which is on 24/7), yet I'm paying about $30/month for everything.
They don't make a trade paperback series that collects all the spider-man issues, that I'm aware of. They have the early ones in black & white (sorry, I want them as they were originally - in color), and some selected ones in color, but not the whole thing. I don't think they collect all of X-Men either. Classic X-Men is (was?) good for getting old issues, but you still have to go about tracking them down.
Really, if a company decides it's not worth it to distribute material, it should become legal for others to do so. And if they decide later on that they want to start producing their stuff again, fine, let it be illegal to distribute once again.
Apparently Australia is paving the way here. eVACS, as I learned from another poster, is open-source and was used in the Australian Capital Territory elections in 2001. I think a great start would be to have some federal or state IT workers adapt it for use here in the states, and test it out in small-scale elections. Maybe by 2008 we'll be able to vote via the web, and we'll see lots more voter turnout and it'll be impossible to rig the election. A guy can dream...
Okay I just checked sourceforge, and I saw one open source voting project, with no activity. Why aren't we doing something to change this? Why aren't we writing our own voting software? We can test it out in small groups, eventually use it in communities, counties, states, and finally in national elections. The country is tending toward electronic voting; IT NEEDS TO BE OPEN SOURCE.
A poster said earlier that the only reliable method of tallying votes is counting them by hand. That may be true, but look what happened last election. Wouldn't you feel safer if you could go through all the code line-by-line, and know for yourself it was secure, rather than have to trust some truck driver to not get lost with the ballots?
One huge benefit of electronic voting: we could be a true democracy. Want to decide if we should go to war? Lets all vote for it. Lower taxes? Get your vote in, Sept. 19th. Everyone voted for no taxes, and things got fucked up? We'll schedule another vote Oct. 19th to vote again, and unfuck them. Think about it: technology today is about to allow us to do something that has never before been even attempted on a large scale - rule by the people. The president could be a figurehead! Congress could exist for the purpose of suggesting laws for the American people to decide, rather than making them!
So who's the fucker who registered truedemocracy.org? Why don't you give it up so someone can put it to good use? I'm no programmer, but I'd be more than happy to give up some of my time to coordinate a project like this. Anyone who's interested, feel free to get in touch with me. Oh wait, I forgot - this is Slashdot - a lot of complaining about how things are, but no balls to fix them.
Your post got me thinking. I don't subscribe to Slashdot either, but there's a good chance I will if I can manage to land a decent full-time job (stupid economy). The thought went through my head: I'd miss out on the Think Geek ads if I subscribed. Granted, they're not enjoyable for their own sake like some Volkswagen ads, but I like to be informed of the latest offerings at Think Geek, and I'd rather it not come in the form of email spam.
It seems like some sort of ad preferences system would be a win-win situation. Companies would target consumers they knew for sure were interested in their type of product, and readers would get ads that are actually relevant. It could be as simple as an extra preferences pane:
I'm into:
[ ] Fishing
[ ] Music Software
[ ] Server Software
[ ] Server Hardware
whatever, the list might be really long. You could also have something like:
I'm receptive to ads from:
[ ] Think Geek
[ ] Amazon
[ ] Apple
[ ] Doubleclick
etc.
Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind a single national database that all companies could refer to, so I'd stop getting stuff about refinancing my mortgage. Of course, there could be privacy issues - watch the current administration send everyone who checked "I'm into anarchy" off to Cuba...
Oh man, you so need to take a sensitivity course. Why wouldn't it have been funny? Are gay people unfunny to you? Do you find gay marriage distasteful, and therefore not something to laugh at?
Furthermore, you discuss the heterosexual and gay male communities as if they are the only ones of import. By completely ignoring the fact that both posters could very well be bisexual women, or the 2nd poster a lesbian, not to mention transgendered, you do them all a great disservice.
You know, I was thinking, there's a lot of people out there using snippets of my code too. I want in on the action. I'll even disclose the offending bits, in no particular order:
I've heard from several mechanics that the mid-grade gas is much better for your car, and that you don't get much benefit when stepping up to the high stuff. Interestingly, some newer cars (my Mom's new minivan, for instance), are made for the cheap stuff. It even says so in the owner's manual!
I don't understand. Why would you mix to -20? Do you mean record to -20? I can see where that would make sense, because then if the musician got loud all the sudden, he's got 20db of headroom to get louder in. But if you're mixing, and the output signal peaks at -20, why not turn it up to -0.1? It's not gonna clip, you'll have all the dynamic range that was in the original tracks, and it'll sound about as loud as most CDs. I can see the reasons for not compressing the signal further and bringing the lows up, but just bringing the peaks up? I don't get it.
Hold on there. I was talking reality, not what I think is or isn't right. Realistically, record labels would never drive the price of physical media down by offering downloads at a cheaper rate, essentially going into competition with themselves!
Now you want to talk what's right and wrong? I don't know. My first reastion is to say that it's wrong. I do believe it's wrong to offer for free music that the original artist is trying to sell. But to just download it? I don't know... I think back to how many times I've made a tape of a CD, or even duped a CD. It was never "wrong" until the whole Napster debacle. Is it just a matter of numbers? I think of my friend, who is damn glad she downloaded the new Liz Phair CD before she bought it, because it sucks ass. I think of how I'd like to buy Ani DiFranco's "Reveiling/Reckoning," and will (when I get a job), even though I own blank CDs of it duped from the original. I do know that there's a class-action lawsuit going on about the recording industry price-fixing, and I believe they're guilty. Is downloading music illegal, and therefore wrong? Sure. Is downloading music immoral, and therefore wrong? Maybe. Is there anything anyone can do about it? Probably not. Is that a good thing? When you've got a mass of people (in this case, like, everyone) doing something, it just is, and you just have to learn to deal with it.
Hey, I agree with you that demand is elastic. Hell, I think filesharing boosts RIAA profits.
My point is that record companies will never take a risk that has the possibility of threatening their existing revenue source. My "net loss of $14.50" arguement is nothing more than an attempt to describe how the record execs see things.
if there were no idiots out there like you trying to justify blatant piracy on any number of grounds... we'd RIGHT NOW have 50c music dowloads as far as the eye could see.
Oh my, that's a good one. Have you submitted that to the humor section? How about Leno? I haven't heard anything that funny since Seinfeld went off the air. You really think the biz would do anything that would cut into their profits? If it was impossible to copy a file, so that piracy was impossible, the most labels would do is offer the music at the EXACT same price as a CD. As in, buy it at the store for $15, or, new and convenient!, download it now for $15! Because, if someone downloaded "Baby one more time" for $0.50, that's $14.50 they didn't spend on the rest of the CD. Net result: loss of $14.50!
Don't even think about using the phrases "manufacturing and distribution" and "pass the savings along to the customer" together, or you'll make me pee my pants.
I bought an iBook and a couple months later, the power adapter (the power cord, basically) went out. Apparently, this is pretty rare. So I drove all the way down to the Apple store where I bought it to get a replacement. The guy tried it out on a working laptop and confirmed that it was broken, and not my computer. All fine.
Then he tells me that they don't have any extra in stock. They have ones they could sell me, sure (for some stupid amount of money - $90 or something), but none for repairs that they could just give me. Yes, I know that stock for repairs and retail stock are different, but that's bullshit. If I go to Home Depot and buy a drill that doesn't work, they let me exchange it for a new one right off the shelf. If the cord for the drill doesn't work, hell, they take a new one out of a box, swap it with my old one, and let me be on my way. Okay, that never actually happened, but I bet they would. Here, let me give you a true example: I bought a Strat at Guitar Center a while ago. After taking it home, I noticed that the knob for the pickup switch was missing. The next time I came in, I mentioned it to them. They just pulled one off a demo model and gave it to me, no questions asked. Same thing with my Ozone keyboard. One of the nubs was missing, right out of the box. The guy pulled one off a demo model and gave it to me. Needless to say, I do all my music shopping at Guitar Center.
So here I am in an Apple store in the mall, an hour away from home, with a now useless laptop. I ask if I can swap my broken adaptor with one of the many working demo ones. "No." I ask if I can leave it, and he'll "fix" it (basically order another one), and I'll pick it up later. He tells me I can, but I have to leave the computer too. WTF? Yes, that's right, they don't have any forms or whatever that say "broken power adaptor." Just "broken computer." The tech guy tells recommends I call Applecare (which I could've done from home). I ask if he can call from the store, so I can get to them directly. So he calls the fucking 800 number. I'm on hold for like 20 minutes. They say, they're going to send me a new cable/adaptor, and I just put the old one in the box and send it back, postage paid. As long as I send it back within 2 weeks ( i think it was 2 weeks), I won't get charged. Yeah, that's right. They made me give them my credit card #.
Well I get the new one in a couple days, and it works beautifully. I pack up the old one and peel away the mailing label till I see Apple's address showing. I bring it to the local package delivery place. They tell me they can't send it out. They do Airborne, but they can't send it. It's not a return slip. Well, I'm about to move to Boston and I can't be bothered with looking all over for another delivery place. So I move. I call Apple to make sure there's nothing wrong with the label. They tell me I probably peeled off one too many layers, but I swear I don't remember the second one having their address on it. But they tell me that if I wrote their account # on it, it should be fine. So I look up the nearest Mailboxes etc., and go there. It's turned into a UPS store, and they don't do Airborne. Fine. So I go back home and actually call up the Mailboxes Etc. store this time. One after another, they've turned into UPS, or they simply don't do Airborne (all this time, days are passing, mind you, because I'm spending most of my time looking for a job, which as we all know, isn't as easy now as it was in '98). Apparently there's one in fucking Southie. Right, like I want to spend half the day on the T.
So I'm getting nervous that the 2 weeks will pass soon, so I say fuck it, and take it to the Post office and mail it out of my own pocket. Not more than $5, IIRC. Then I get my credit card statement. Apparently, I missed the deadline, because the fuckers charged me $115. At a time when I DON'T need extra charges on my card, you can be sure.
And now it's been like a month. I was hoping they'd get it and refund my card, but it doesn't look like that's going to
Well, generally, if a couple's trying to get pregnant, it's recommended that the guy wear boxers, right? Doesn't keep the berries all scrunched up in there - apparently too much heat kills sperm. So if that's true, then for maximum potency, it's best to walk around pantless, since pants provide some insulation, right? So you could argue that pants promote impotency...
I will post a link to the most obscene picture I can find on the web, disguised as an on-topic href, because I am such a tool in all other respects of my life, the only hope I have of influencing people in any way is by making unknown and unseen strangers lose their lunch.
Say for instance, I bought a CD from Amazon. Is it legal for them to offer me a free download while I wait for the physical one to arrive? I mean, buying a CD is pretty good proof that I own it, right?
Slashdot Mirror
This may be borderline off-topic, but I wanted to elaborate on the poster mention of stupid puns in the book.
What's up with that? Why do people not think these lame jokes make them look like morons? I was watching a car show yesterday, and they ended with a bit on exhaust systems: "If you haven't exhausted your possibilites yet, you can pick up the acme muffler - it's a gas." Except it went on longer and was stupider. There were at least two more stupid puns, including "exhaust" being used again. With half the time being an advertisement of select aftermarket parts and the other half devoted to making me groan, I learned what a supercharger was, how it differed from Nos, and that's about it. In half an hour.
Make jokes, that's fine. If you want to say "how can the iPod be so skinny, yet sound so fat?" that's great, I'll chuckle. But "Apple-ication?" Don't be a dumbass.
According to this, a computer draws less than half the power of a refrigerator.
I think their numbers are a little high, though. By their calculations, I should be paying $30/month just for the computer (which is on 24/7), yet I'm paying about $30/month for everything.
They don't make a trade paperback series that collects all the spider-man issues, that I'm aware of. They have the early ones in black & white (sorry, I want them as they were originally - in color), and some selected ones in color, but not the whole thing. I don't think they collect all of X-Men either. Classic X-Men is (was?) good for getting old issues, but you still have to go about tracking them down.
Really, if a company decides it's not worth it to distribute material, it should become legal for others to do so. And if they decide later on that they want to start producing their stuff again, fine, let it be illegal to distribute once again.
Apparently Australia is paving the way here. eVACS, as I learned from another poster, is open-source and was used in the Australian Capital Territory elections in 2001. I think a great start would be to have some federal or state IT workers adapt it for use here in the states, and test it out in small-scale elections. Maybe by 2008 we'll be able to vote via the web, and we'll see lots more voter turnout and it'll be impossible to rig the election. A guy can dream...
Okay I just checked sourceforge, and I saw one open source voting project, with no activity. Why aren't we doing something to change this? Why aren't we writing our own voting software? We can test it out in small groups, eventually use it in communities, counties, states, and finally in national elections. The country is tending toward electronic voting; IT NEEDS TO BE OPEN SOURCE.
A poster said earlier that the only reliable method of tallying votes is counting them by hand. That may be true, but look what happened last election. Wouldn't you feel safer if you could go through all the code line-by-line, and know for yourself it was secure, rather than have to trust some truck driver to not get lost with the ballots?
One huge benefit of electronic voting: we could be a true democracy. Want to decide if we should go to war? Lets all vote for it. Lower taxes? Get your vote in, Sept. 19th. Everyone voted for no taxes, and things got fucked up? We'll schedule another vote Oct. 19th to vote again, and unfuck them. Think about it: technology today is about to allow us to do something that has never before been even attempted on a large scale - rule by the people. The president could be a figurehead! Congress could exist for the purpose of suggesting laws for the American people to decide, rather than making them!
So who's the fucker who registered truedemocracy.org? Why don't you give it up so someone can put it to good use? I'm no programmer, but I'd be more than happy to give up some of my time to coordinate a project like this. Anyone who's interested, feel free to get in touch with me. Oh wait, I forgot - this is Slashdot - a lot of complaining about how things are, but no balls to fix them.
Your post got me thinking. I don't subscribe to Slashdot either, but there's a good chance I will if I can manage to land a decent full-time job (stupid economy). The thought went through my head: I'd miss out on the Think Geek ads if I subscribed. Granted, they're not enjoyable for their own sake like some Volkswagen ads, but I like to be informed of the latest offerings at Think Geek, and I'd rather it not come in the form of email spam.
It seems like some sort of ad preferences system would be a win-win situation. Companies would target consumers they knew for sure were interested in their type of product, and readers would get ads that are actually relevant. It could be as simple as an extra preferences pane:
I'm into:
[ ] Fishing
[ ] Music Software
[ ] Server Software
[ ] Server Hardware
whatever, the list might be really long. You could also have something like:
I'm receptive to ads from:
[ ] Think Geek
[ ] Amazon
[ ] Apple
[ ] Doubleclick
etc.
Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind a single national database that all companies could refer to, so I'd stop getting stuff about refinancing my mortgage. Of course, there could be privacy issues - watch the current administration send everyone who checked "I'm into anarchy" off to Cuba...
Arrgh! I can't tell if you're being serious or sarcastic. I give up - you win! I bow to your mindfuck-fu.
I expect to see my karma preominate SCO's stock anyway...
Oh man, you so need to take a sensitivity course. Why wouldn't it have been funny? Are gay people unfunny to you? Do you find gay marriage distasteful, and therefore not something to laugh at?
;)
Furthermore, you discuss the heterosexual and gay male communities as if they are the only ones of import. By completely ignoring the fact that both posters could very well be bisexual women, or the 2nd poster a lesbian, not to mention transgendered, you do them all a great disservice.
You sir, are a bigot
You know, I was thinking, there's a lot of people out there using snippets of my code too. I want in on the action. I'll even disclose the offending bits, in no particular order:
;
i++
n = 0
a = []
(Yes, I said pig-fuckers. I think they get up on pigs and they fuck them. Squeeeeee! Anyone wanna disagree?)
I was thinking, "uncle-fuckers."
Why do you assume that the guy who responded isn't a gay male? Seems awfully insensitive to me...
He is also the person who discovered Amdahl's law
Wow, what are the chances of that?
*ducks*
I've heard from several mechanics that the mid-grade gas is much better for your car, and that you don't get much benefit when stepping up to the high stuff. Interestingly, some newer cars (my Mom's new minivan, for instance), are made for the cheap stuff. It even says so in the owner's manual!
I don't understand. Why would you mix to -20? Do you mean record to -20? I can see where that would make sense, because then if the musician got loud all the sudden, he's got 20db of headroom to get louder in. But if you're mixing, and the output signal peaks at -20, why not turn it up to -0.1? It's not gonna clip, you'll have all the dynamic range that was in the original tracks, and it'll sound about as loud as most CDs. I can see the reasons for not compressing the signal further and bringing the lows up, but just bringing the peaks up? I don't get it.
Hold on there. I was talking reality, not what I think is or isn't right. Realistically, record labels would never drive the price of physical media down by offering downloads at a cheaper rate, essentially going into competition with themselves!
Now you want to talk what's right and wrong? I don't know. My first reastion is to say that it's wrong. I do believe it's wrong to offer for free music that the original artist is trying to sell. But to just download it? I don't know... I think back to how many times I've made a tape of a CD, or even duped a CD. It was never "wrong" until the whole Napster debacle. Is it just a matter of numbers? I think of my friend, who is damn glad she downloaded the new Liz Phair CD before she bought it, because it sucks ass. I think of how I'd like to buy Ani DiFranco's "Reveiling/Reckoning," and will (when I get a job), even though I own blank CDs of it duped from the original. I do know that there's a class-action lawsuit going on about the recording industry price-fixing, and I believe they're guilty. Is downloading music illegal, and therefore wrong? Sure. Is downloading music immoral, and therefore wrong? Maybe. Is there anything anyone can do about it? Probably not. Is that a good thing? When you've got a mass of people (in this case, like, everyone) doing something, it just is, and you just have to learn to deal with it.
Hey, I agree with you that demand is elastic. Hell, I think filesharing boosts RIAA profits.
My point is that record companies will never take a risk that has the possibility of threatening their existing revenue source. My "net loss of $14.50" arguement is nothing more than an attempt to describe how the record execs see things.
if there were no idiots out there like you trying to justify blatant piracy on any number of grounds ... we'd RIGHT NOW have 50c music dowloads as far as the eye could see.
Oh my, that's a good one. Have you submitted that to the humor section? How about Leno? I haven't heard anything that funny since Seinfeld went off the air. You really think the biz would do anything that would cut into their profits? If it was impossible to copy a file, so that piracy was impossible, the most labels would do is offer the music at the EXACT same price as a CD. As in, buy it at the store for $15, or, new and convenient!, download it now for $15! Because, if someone downloaded "Baby one more time" for $0.50, that's $14.50 they didn't spend on the rest of the CD. Net result: loss of $14.50!
Don't even think about using the phrases "manufacturing and distribution" and "pass the savings along to the customer" together, or you'll make me pee my pants.
I bought an iBook and a couple months later, the power adapter (the power cord, basically) went out. Apparently, this is pretty rare. So I drove all the way down to the Apple store where I bought it to get a replacement. The guy tried it out on a working laptop and confirmed that it was broken, and not my computer. All fine.
Then he tells me that they don't have any extra in stock. They have ones they could sell me, sure (for some stupid amount of money - $90 or something), but none for repairs that they could just give me. Yes, I know that stock for repairs and retail stock are different, but that's bullshit. If I go to Home Depot and buy a drill that doesn't work, they let me exchange it for a new one right off the shelf. If the cord for the drill doesn't work, hell, they take a new one out of a box, swap it with my old one, and let me be on my way. Okay, that never actually happened, but I bet they would. Here, let me give you a true example: I bought a Strat at Guitar Center a while ago. After taking it home, I noticed that the knob for the pickup switch was missing. The next time I came in, I mentioned it to them. They just pulled one off a demo model and gave it to me, no questions asked. Same thing with my Ozone keyboard. One of the nubs was missing, right out of the box. The guy pulled one off a demo model and gave it to me. Needless to say, I do all my music shopping at Guitar Center.
So here I am in an Apple store in the mall, an hour away from home, with a now useless laptop. I ask if I can swap my broken adaptor with one of the many working demo ones. "No." I ask if I can leave it, and he'll "fix" it (basically order another one), and I'll pick it up later. He tells me I can, but I have to leave the computer too. WTF? Yes, that's right, they don't have any forms or whatever that say "broken power adaptor." Just "broken computer." The tech guy tells recommends I call Applecare (which I could've done from home). I ask if he can call from the store, so I can get to them directly. So he calls the fucking 800 number. I'm on hold for like 20 minutes. They say, they're going to send me a new cable/adaptor, and I just put the old one in the box and send it back, postage paid. As long as I send it back within 2 weeks ( i think it was 2 weeks), I won't get charged. Yeah, that's right. They made me give them my credit card #.
Well I get the new one in a couple days, and it works beautifully. I pack up the old one and peel away the mailing label till I see Apple's address showing. I bring it to the local package delivery place. They tell me they can't send it out. They do Airborne, but they can't send it. It's not a return slip. Well, I'm about to move to Boston and I can't be bothered with looking all over for another delivery place. So I move. I call Apple to make sure there's nothing wrong with the label. They tell me I probably peeled off one too many layers, but I swear I don't remember the second one having their address on it. But they tell me that if I wrote their account # on it, it should be fine. So I look up the nearest Mailboxes etc., and go there. It's turned into a UPS store, and they don't do Airborne. Fine. So I go back home and actually call up the Mailboxes Etc. store this time. One after another, they've turned into UPS, or they simply don't do Airborne (all this time, days are passing, mind you, because I'm spending most of my time looking for a job, which as we all know, isn't as easy now as it was in '98). Apparently there's one in fucking Southie. Right, like I want to spend half the day on the T.
So I'm getting nervous that the 2 weeks will pass soon, so I say fuck it, and take it to the Post office and mail it out of my own pocket. Not more than $5, IIRC. Then I get my credit card statement. Apparently, I missed the deadline, because the fuckers charged me $115. At a time when I DON'T need extra charges on my card, you can be sure.
And now it's been like a month. I was hoping they'd get it and refund my card, but it doesn't look like that's going to
then he laughed and laughed, until he puked
Ahh, the good ol' days...
No, you see, if a guy's infertile, then his self-confidence is way down, and studies show...
Okay, fine. I made a mistake and mixed up the words. I'll admit to it.
Well, generally, if a couple's trying to get pregnant, it's recommended that the guy wear boxers, right? Doesn't keep the berries all scrunched up in there - apparently too much heat kills sperm. So if that's true, then for maximum potency, it's best to walk around pantless, since pants provide some insulation, right? So you could argue that pants promote impotency...
Mister taco, If you came to my office with no pants on I think I would gauge my eyes out.
...hmm, 38mm... hey! They're not bigger at all! Cartoons lie!"
"Woah, Taco's in my office with no pants!
Does this mean Napster is legal in Germany?
Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance!
I will post a link to the most obscene picture I can find on the web, disguised as an on-topic href, because I am such a tool in all other respects of my life, the only hope I have of influencing people in any way is by making unknown and unseen strangers lose their lunch.
Say for instance, I bought a CD from Amazon. Is it legal for them to offer me a free download while I wait for the physical one to arrive? I mean, buying a CD is pretty good proof that I own it, right?